THE JOURNEY CONTINUES.

Gee, this is a country of contrasts! Yesterday morning we left Harar, after a wonderful and exciting 3 days . We loved the city and could have stayed a lot longer, if we had the time. Anyway we travelled back to Awash along the same road, but how different the experience was from when we travelled in some days before. The scenery is mind blowing. It is just hills and dales and fields of maize and plantations of Chat. Everywhere people are working the land, ploughing with oxen and preparing for the next market day. It appears as if life revolves around the market day for the town or village. Most villages or areas have a market day once per week and some of the bigger centres seem to have market days twice a week. Luckily we went through a little market early in the morning and got fresh things that look and taste much like a”vetkoek”, which we had for breakfast. One thing we have learnt and that is that you can get the best bread or rather rolls at the markets. We have bought a variety of the over the last 2 weeks. I must be getting old because previously I would have learnt how to ask for wine first, and thus far my vocabulary in the local language is “daboo bet” or “mana Daboo”, which means bread shop. I don’t worry with the “where is it” bit. You just say it like a question and there you go. When it is market day you just go to the bread seller and point, which is a lot easier. It also seems like everything has a similar sort of pricing structure, so you don’t have to worry from market to market. We stopped for brunch in a lovely “dorpie” called Himla and had Chai and scrambled eggs. There name for scrambled eggs is, eggs “firr-firr”, which I suppose is the way it sounds when you scramble eggs. When we left we got our left our rolls to take with us, can you believe that!

When we got to Awash, we crossed the bridge out of the town and took a photo of the bridge, a perfectly normal action, we thought, however as we got to the other end we were stopped and seriously intimidated. We acted a bit stupid and waited for who knows what, but we did quickly delete the pictures, in case of trouble. After about 10 minutes, which felt a lot longer, we were waved on. We left quickly and Dick later recovered the pictures later on his recovery programme. The road is the main route between Addis Ababa and Djibouti and apparently there is a lot of “shifta” and related activities, so there is a lot of military presence along the road. We stopped for a P break, which is the obvious and a picture and in a flash there were 6 military guys to check on us. Where the heck they came from, I have no idea. We made no stops after that!.

We arrived at our evening destination and went hunting for a camp or hotel . Well, none of those available and we booked in at the local “motel” This was a room with twin beds, a loo and a shower, all for about about R35. This sounds fantastic, until you see it. Well 2 beds with clean bedding, I put flee powder on, none the less. A shower???? A toilet????? Sign language and 4 words in English got the message across. One person can shower and the other can wash. I gathered that the “shower” capacity was small in terms of water , however we got 2 x 25 lt cans of water for all our other needs. That was great, as I can wash easily from top to toe in my blue “bakkie” and I can do any amount of washing in the same bakkie, as long as have water. My mother would die, if she had seen the accommodation. We thought that there must be a fair amount of sex trade in the area, based on the number of used condoms lying around and the fact that it was obviously an overnight truck stop! We were unperturbed and set up camp cooking on the veranda in front of our room and had lekker pasta and wine and pretended that we were in the best hotel out.

This morning we set off to go and visit the Yandudi Rassa National Park, but that was a bit of a flop. No roads, no infra structure, no tourists and generally NO GO. So, we did not go. The beauty of it all is that the major truck route to Djibouti goes bang slap through the middle of the park. There are also plenty cattle in the area. We were lucky, we saw 3 Arabian Bustards, which is special to the area. The rest of the journey was shared with a million trucks, either on their way to Djibouti or back from there. We stopped for Chai in Mille and then the real journey .for the day started. We travelled through Afar country, which is barren and true desert and hostile in looks. The journey of about 100 km took us about 3 hours!! That was not because of frequent stops, more due to the road conditions. The ice cold beers after that was like mother’s milk. After this we were well out of the desert and into the mountains. It is actually impossible to describe the scenery and photo opportunities, which were many, however there is little if any place to stop, so amny were from the moving car or if it was just too much, we would make a “viewpoint” stop to capture the moment. We spent hours just climbing up mountain pass after mountain pass and suddenly tonight we are staying in a town about 3000m high on the slopes of the mountain. It could have been in the Alps, if it was not for the very obviousness of Africa around us. Shanty town, corrugated iron everywhere, no decent roads and a whole town dug up to work on a new water system. Half completed buildings everywhere, traffic chaos and the best hotel, which looks like the sixties and had never moved on. We are not complaining, even if there is no hot water, we have a flushing toilet tonight and a queen size bed!!

You cannot travel in Africa without a sense of humour and accepting the unexpected all the time.